


Invidious - Paranoid

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1430]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-02-01 06:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21419911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Tony's been paranoid his entire life, thanks to Senior, unfortunately that doesn't mean they're not after him.
Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1430]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/444514
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33
Collections: Cutsycat's Five Prompts Challenge





	Invidious - Paranoid

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 03/31/2003 for the word [invidious](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/03/31/invidious).
> 
> invidious[ in-vid-ee-uh s ]  
adjective  
calculated to create ill will or resentment or give offense; hateful:  
invidious remarks.  
offensively or unfairly discriminating; injurious:  
invidious comparisons.  
causing or tending to cause animosity, resentment, or envy:  
an invidious honor.  
Obsolete. envious.
> 
> This is for Prompt 5 of the October 2019 Five Prompts Challenge located [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/212133.html).

Ever since Senior disowned him, Tony had a hard time trusting anyone. After all, if you couldn’t trust your own father, who could you trust? As he grew up, he had more and more people turn on him after they met Senior.

It hurt, but Tony kind of understood. They didn’t know him and most progeny didn’t fall far from the parental tree. That didn’t stop him from becoming paranoid, however.

He’d finished college to some of his frat brothers dismay, proving yet again that even the people supposed to be your friends couldn’t be trusted. College hadn’t gone the way he’d expected as he’d planned to become a professional athlete, after college. He was still convinced that his broken leg was setup by one of his teammates, though he had no proof of that.

Now that he was working at Peoria as a cop, he felt like he always had to have one eye facing forward and one eye facing back. Everyone knew what happened to gay cops and while Tony considered himself bi, he knew that bisexuals got labeled gay if they were seen dating other men. 

Not to say that Tony had any better luck with dates than he did with friends. That was one of the reasons he made a reputation for himself as a playboy. If they didn’t expect more than a single date, they couldn’t hurt him. 

He hated being paranoid, absolutely hated that he couldn’t trust people. He loved Christmas movies because they spoke of a feeling that he’d never experienced in his entire life. A feeling that the world wasn’t out to get you and that you could actually trust your neighbors and your friends. He so badly wanted that for himself.

Unfortunately, the world continue to prove that he wasn’t allowed to have that. When he heard the murmurings about him being gay making the rounds at the police department, Tony knew it was time to move on. He found himself a job in Philadelphia at their police department instead.

It didn’t go any better than the one in Peoria did and he soon found himself looking for yet another job before something terrible could befall him because of his presumed sexual orientation. He was a damn good cop. He had the record to prove it, but nobody cared because he sometimes dated men. It was beyond frustrating.

He hoped that Baltimore would be different and it was, but not in a good way. Instead of leaving at 2 years like he had the others, he left at 18 months. Instead of leaving because people found out he was bi, he left because his partner was dirty and had actually betrayed him. 

Needless to say, he was well past done with being a police officer. He didn’t have a whole lot of other career options available to him, however, so he took the job offer from NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. 

He wanted to trust Gibbs. He wanted to trust NCIS. He wanted to be allowed to trust for once in his life without worrying about being stabbed in the back.

At first, it seemed like he could trust those at NCIS. He knew Gibbs had found out that he was bi before he ever left Baltimore and it was a non issue, but then he found about Gibbs’ fourth wife. As the man only admitted to three, his trust in him faltered.

As Kate and McGee joined the team, he tried to move past his distrust of Gibbs. Gibbs had proven himself in other ways, after all. Still things weren’t terrible and he tried to keep his paranoia at bay and tell himself that they weren’t out to get him.

Then Kate died and she was replaced by Ziva. The director forced Ziva on them and at first, Gibbs was pissed, but then he wasn’t. It was weird and Tony’s instincts were telling him to flee, to run, but he ignored them wanting to trust in Gibbs. 

That’s when the invidious remarks started. At first, it was only Ziva. Tony tried to play it off as just her trying to find her place on the team and not as what his paranoia was telling him it was; mainly an attempt to drive a wedge between him and Gibbs and hurt Tony.

Unfortunately, as the movie Catch-22 pointed out, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.”

That became pretty damn obvious when he found out that Ziva and McGee had turned him off while he was collecting voice prints of suspects for the Military At Home murders. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Ziva actually tried to kill him when they were boxed in a shipping container together. Tony couldn’t take it anymore.

He wanted to be the strong one, the one that fought for their country for the victims and eradicated people like Ziva, but he didn’t know who to trust anymore. Gibbs trusted Ziva, for reasons he didn’t understand, and there was absolutely no one else that Tony even felt he could trust. 

He couldn’t let Ziva get away with what she was doing. He didn’t know what her plot was, but he was damn sure going to find out, but he also couldn’t stay at NCIS any longer. With that in mind, he researched the heck out of what Ziva was up to.

He didn’t much like Fornell, having been arrested by the guy for murder more than once, but he’d seen how Fornell behaved and he knew that if he brought evidence that Ziva was committing treason to Fornell that he would do the right thing and wouldn’t sweep it under the rug. Heck, Fornell would probably gloat about it to Gibbs, which tickled Tony’s sense of justice since Gibbs had been the one to support Ziva. Tony suspected that he could work this to his advantage to get a job at the FBI, but honestly he wasn’t sure that he wanted to be a Feeb or even be in law enforcement anymore. 

He was tempted to become an investment banker instead. At least there, people didn’t pretend to be your friends and then stab you in the back. You knew exactly who you could and couldn’t trust and Tony really wanted to be able to trust someone without worrying if they’d stab him in the back.

He wasn’t sure it would work out, but he had to give it a try. So he turned in his badge, he turned in his gun, and he gave Fornell all the evidence he would need to lock Ziva in the darkest prison for a very long time, and he retired. He moved to Hawaii and he started working the stock trade for his money and for others. 

He’d been investing his money since before he finished high school. He took it over, right around the time his dad disowned him and he wasn’t half bad at it. He enjoyed Hawaii too, the sun, the beach, the waves. He was as happy as he’d ever been, even if he had yet to find anyone he could actually trust. He still always hoped that someday he would find that one person. Maybe someday would actually happen for him in Hawaii.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has 1 story already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least 1 more story before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> It's 2019 now and I have closed my 2018 Prompt collection, but fear not my 2019 Prompt Collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. Do not fear I have not forgotten about the 2018 prompts and will continue working through them. It's just easier for me to not get overwhelmed if I keep the prompts separated by the year they were given to me.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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